The present invention relates generally to power body building machines for exercising and conditioning muscles. More particularly, the present invention relates to body building or weight training machines for conditioning, strengthening and exercising the upper body muscles including the shoulders, the chest, and the back.
In recent years, body building has become extremely popular with professional and amateur athletes and others who are concerned with physical fitness. It is an important object of body building training to gradually put greater loads on muscles by increasing both weight resistance and the number of repetitions which may be performed. While it has long been known to excercise and build up muscle tissue with bar bells or conventional weights, various machines have been proposed for controlled, power body building. Machines may aid an individual in practicing desired exercises and they are usually designed and adapted to encourage repetitions of a variety of desired body movements. Correct training requires proper kinetics of movement, as well as the the emulation of proper form and ranges of movement. For example, where bending movements are involved it is important that the proper fulcrum position be realized by the athlete. Although it is normally possible to exercise one's muscles in a complete workout without using "machine" type devices, it has been found properly designed exercising machines help encourage both the novice and experienced bodybuilder to observe proper form and routine. When a athlete regularly trains on a properly designed machine with correctly installed accessories, his strength, endurance and speed will gradually by surely increase.
It is important in body building to develop a thickly muscled chest. Upper exercises can include various forms of weight lifting and machine-assisted exercises wherein the arms and hands and the muscles therein are vigorously and repeatedly stressed, and the chest is similarly conditioned. A variety of bench press exercises, for example, are known for exercising the pectoral muscle group over the upper rib cage. Pectoral muscles contract to pull and exercise the homorous. By pulling the homorous across the body at various angles, one can stress different parts of the pectoral muscles. It is also important to exercise the upper body by exercises designed to expand the rib cage. A variety of chest exercises involving bench presses and the like are also known. Incline and decline presses are often performed with bar bells, but the modern trend is to use training equipment such as a universal gymnasium machine or a Smith machine.
Shoulder development and training is also important. Shoulder training involves stressing of the deltoid muscles, and essentially three types of deltoid movements are commonly encouraged. These are pushing exercises, leverage movements, and pulling exercises. In an effort to accomodate all of these typically movements, it is desirable to provide means whereby the arms can be stressed laterally, stressed while pushing upwardly, and stressed in a pulling moment. While certain prior art devices such as Smith machines employ vertical runners associated with a loaded weight bar assembly, most of them require the hands to be maintained in a fixed position relative to the weighted bar assembly. No know prior art exercising machines appear to exist which enable the wrist of the hands to be significantly twisted contemporaneously with lateral and vertical upper body movements.
Proper body building technique also requires adherence to safety procedures. One important safety recommendation is that the athlete use "spotters" to stand near him when "free weights" such as barbells are being lifted. It is also prudent to have some form of safety-catch rack or equipment so that heavy barbells cannot be dropped in response to a muscle cramp or the like. Machines adapted to "control" weights such as barbells are ideally adapted to promote these safety aspects.
I am unaware of any machine which operationally combines "free weight" compatibility with selective weight stack stressing, while concurrently providing rotary hand and wrist movement with vertical and horizontal arm and upper torso movement. I have provided a machine which safely enables an exerciser to strengthen, condition and build the upper torso, which simultaneously urges the user to maintain proper form and a high degree of safety.